Leave Harambe Alone, Zoo Begs

Well, you COULD look at it this way. There's a lot more human children on earth born each day than there are of that species of gorilla in total.....

I'm JK of course. The situation itself isn't necessarily that they're prioritizing the life of the gorilla over that of the child, but more that the situation shouldn't have occurred in the first place, (due either to better parenting or better methods to keep the people and animals separated, or ideally, both), and there some feel the choice to shoot the gorilla was hastily made without seeking alternate solutions. It's mostly just a situation where there simply wasn't an optimal solution when things went as they did, so as a result there are those on both sides, followed by now there being the memers, and then finally there's those like me who don't really care because what's in the past is in the past.......

I guess the zoo has never heard of the Streisand Effect.

I'm assuming they didn't have any tranqs on-hand, in which case, yeah, prioritise human life over ape life. That said though, if they had regular guns handy at a moment's notice, why NOT tranq guns?

Tranquilizers don't work immediately so choosing to tranq it could have sent it into a rage thus killing the boy. Killing the gorilla was absolutely the right thing to do.

People forget that gorillas are incredibly powerful animals and that we are kind of squishy compared to them. Plus they aren't aware of the fact that they are so much stronger than us, so while Harambe might have been trying to protect the child, it would be very easy for him to kill the child by accident.

It's one of the reasons that the majority of the time a zookeeper interacts with a gorilla there is a cage or fence in the way for safety.

I really want to emphasize as someone who went there so much as a kid/young teenager, that their programs are incredible. They focus so heavily on conservation and education and everyone you meet that works there loves the animals like they are family. They make it a point of pride to share that love with everyone who visits. The animals are so closely cared for they have staff there 24/7 to make sure that the animals are given the best care possible.

The Henry Doorley Zoo in Omaha Nebraska does the same thing. Many of their more popular exhibits are rescue animals that would have died. Not to mention they have among the largest collection of animal exhibits with animals from every continent, and environments ranging desert to rainforest and even nocturnal.

Thus is the true power of the internet.....

It's the same way that there was all the controversy about the new Ghostbusters. One group took to the internet taking one side, then another group took to the other side, and eventually it got to the point that everyone started mocking both sides, and the internet's over reaction as a whole. As with all things on the internet, it'll die out in probably a month or two at the most, (baring more attempts to "make it stop"), and just be another of those weird memes that could only happen on the internet, with the memes showing up from time to time by the people who bring it back because "hey, remember this".......

There was actual controversy regarding the whole situation, but that's the reason why it's suddenly an internet thing. The people of the internet don't have enough to amuse them with all of the lifetimes of free content on Youtube, and other sites, so they have to create a new fad every month or so......

Gamer3427 +1 purely for the Ed. Edd and Eddy reference.....nice